M. Night Shyamalan

The Most Batshit Insane Twist Endings in Movie History

This week marks the DVD and Blu-ray debut of Safe Haven, the critically drubbed Nicholas Sparks adaptation starring that girl from Dancing With the Stars and that dude from the Transformers movies. Normally, this would not be worth noting! But there’s something else that’s special about Safe Haven: it’s got one of the most utterly bananas crazy “twist” endings you’ve ever seen. Ever since The Usual Suspects blew everyone’s mind in ’95, and The Sixth Sense followed suit four years later, moviemakers have been trying their damnedest to create shocking third-act reveals that change everything we’ve seen before, and send us out of the theater reeling. Instead, most of them are befuddling, laughable, or just plain stupid. Here are a few examples (with a rather obvious spoiler alert). … Read More

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

1. The Atlantic’s GIF guide to Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas’ gold win yesterday in the women’s all-around final is definitely worth your time.

2. After a string of big movie flops, it seems that M. Night Shyamalan is going to try his hand at TV. The filmmaker is teaming with Buffy the Vampire… Read More

10 Once-Great Directors Who’ve Lost Their Touch

Rob Reiner has a new movie in theaters this Friday; it’s called The Magic of Belle Isle, it stars Morgan Freeman and Virginia Madsen, and it is just plain terrible. This shouldn’t come as a surprise at this point in the Reiner filmography; after a hot streak that included the likes of This Is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, and Stand By Me, Reiner went cold after 1995′s The American President and hasn’t made a great movie since. It happens — for every Scorsese that maintains a consistent quality for decades on end, there are plenty of filmmakers who don’t (even such greats as Hitchcock, Wilder, Chaplin, and Hawks were turning out clunkers at the end of their distinguished careers). In fact, we took an inventory, and dug up 10 more contemporary filmmakers who have gone cold; check them out after the jump, and add your own in the comments. … Read More

10 Viciously Backlashed Movies We Still Like (and Why)

Backlash is a funny thing. It’s always been present in popular culture, but it feels as though it’s become particularly prominent over the past few years, an unavoidable step in any celebrated film, band, book, or television show’s penetration into the cultural landscape: first comes critical acclaim, then financial success, then ubiquity, and then the inevitable backlash from those who object (or who have turned, perhaps because of said popularity and/or ubiquity). Sometimes, the pendulum swings back and the backlash fades — but often, the negative connotation is what sticks, and that’s what becomes the lasting perception.

This week’s 3D rerelease of Titanic got us thinking about backlash, and how often we find ourselves defending movies that were, at least in the beginning, critical and popular hits, but have since fallen out of public favor. Thus, we’ve collected ten movies that the worm turned on — but that we’re standing by, damnit, and we’ll tell you why. Check them out after the jump, and add your own in the comments. … Read More

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

Today at Flavorpill, we watched a a 340-ton boulder go on tour. We adored these vintage photos of cats all dressed up. We wanted to rush to this 24-hour cupcake ATM for reinforcements. We listened to Slavoj Žižek talk about The Wire, because who wouldn’t. We were impressed with … Read More

Terrifying Superstitions in Horror Cinema

There are many theories as to why Friday the 13th has become synonymous with bad luck, but we don’t want to jinx ourselves by pondering the reasons. Instead, we’re looking at ten films that play on our superstitious beliefs revolving around urban legends and other cringe-worthy folklore — and there’s no genre that does it better than horror. Each film forces upon its protagonists a gateway to their nightmarish anxieties, usually by way of something like a book, a name, or a sound. Once the dark harbingers grab hold, all the four-leaf clovers, horseshoes, and number sevens in the world can’t help them. Feel lucky this Friday the 13th by checking out our unfortunate bunch past the break. … Read More

The 30 Harshest Filmmaker-on-Filmmaker Insults in History

[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published August 10, 2011.] Earlier this summer, a shocking number of our readers flocked to read (and amend) our list of the harshest author-on-author insults in history. But you know who is even more childish, trifling, vindictive, and nasty than your favorite scribes? Your favorite filmmakers. These directors may not have quite the same precision with the written word as those rancorous authors, but when it comes to pettiness, they can’t be beat. After the jump, we’ll run down 30 of our favorite slights, slanders, and cheap shots from filmmakers both classic and contemporary; we’d love to hear yours in the comments. … Read More

Help Send M. Night Shyamalan Back to Film School

M. Night Shyamalan graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts nearly two decades ago. And for a while there, he was making pretty decent, crowd-pleasing flicks like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. But it’s been a long slide, beginning with 2004′s The Village, encompassing such travesties as Lady in the Water, The Happening,… Read More

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

1. Musician Michel Martelly — the presidential candidate supported by both Pras and Wyclef Jean — has won the runoff election in Haiti, taking in nearly 68 percent of the vote to defeat former first lady Mirlande Manigat. [via Vulture]

2. “I believe the writers are six weeks away from a draft. I… Read More

What Does the Razzies Shortlist Say About Us?

To the delight of haters everywhere, the Razzie Awards have announced their shortlist for worst movie of 2010. Although we are tempted to simply point and laugh at some of the year’s most horrible offerings, we also think that the films we deem least worthy say something interesting about our changing cultural whims. After the jump, read the Razzies shortlist and follow along as we muse on what these potential nominees say about us. … Read More